Budgeting support: Best practice ways to help low income households

I was attracted to the Better Off Calculator because, as one tool, more consistency. It’s more than just an income and expenditure calculator. I was particularly excited about the better off scenarios work with our customers to show them how their income may improve, or not, depending how their circumstances change, which links heavily into the Universal Credit calculation. I also like the action plan functionality and the self service option.
Marie Hardeman, Customer Accounts Manager, The Guinness Group
Short of time? Listen to our guest speaker only (with subtitles)
Over one fifth of UK households have less than £100 in savings to cushion themselves against economic shocks. With Christmas gone, frontline organisations anticipate more money related enquiries from people in need as they seek support with their household finances.
In our first webinar of 2019 Policy in Practice’s Donna Gallagher and Peter Carter talked to Marie Hardeman, Customer Accounts Manager at The Guinness Group, to hear what budgeting support they give to their tenants and how using Policy in Practice’s Better Off Calculator helps.Donna set the context by sharing the latest research on personal debt from NAO and TUC, amongst others. Marie then spoke in detail about how 3 core teams within Guinness use our software to offer different types of support to their 140,000 tenants nationwide. Peter followed up with a short demo of the software used by The Guinness Group.
Listen back to hear:
- Personal debt in the UK: the size and nature of the problem
- How the Lettings team uses the Better Off Calculator as a tenancy affordability tool
- How the Collections and Prevention team use it to help evidence action and collect arrears
- How the Customer Support team use it to maximise income and support appeals
View slides (no audio) hereDownload Better Off Calculator flyer
Download Example of household whose financial situation has stabilised